Jen's Legacy.
It was... personal.

It had already been personal as he’d tied that rope and had touched her as he’d positioned it snuggly on her, and now it would become even more personal with his forearm tight into her between her legs. There was nothing she could say or object to, if she wanted to get up to the rim, and she couldn’t easily climb it for herself.

He got her started. Yes, she could see and feel how it would be personal, but at least she was covered with her swimsuit and most of her shorts, but she still felt his forearm tight up into her as he lifted her.

With him supporting her on his own legs and threading the free rope through the loop around her waist and up to where he could trap it against the rope above them, they progressed. He leaned out from the face as he pushed and lifted her, taking up the slack through the rope around her waist with each foot they rose, and secured both parts of the rope with each slow advance they made.

He had no intention of letting her fall, or even of allowing her to feel insecure.

“I’ll be right behind you, supporting you and taking up the slack in the rope as we climb, so all you need to do is to place your hands and feet where I tell you, if you can, or I’ll place them for you; or you can hold onto me or the rope. It will be obvious what to do, I think.”

She was nervous but had to trust him, knowing that she could trust him to protect her, with him never letting her go, and with her arm going around his neck as it was needed to hold herself close and securely to him as he repositioned the rope each time, and climbed immediately behind and beneath her.

More than once he forgot, and called her, Jen, reliving earlier memories still, before he quickly corrected himself to call her by her own name.

This was no place to be shy or to complain as he held under her, helping her to climb, and she would not be so stupid as to object, but she’d gone beyond that. She tried to engage her mind with other things, knowing that she would need to change her views on many things while she was in his company, and she would.

As they climbed, his final piece of advice was, ‘Don’t look down’.

She knew about that one. She had no head for heights and would never choose to climb anywhere, and not like this. Stairs, were the extent of her climbing experience, and were much safer.

She was able to study him and his face on the way up, ignoring his touching her, and how he was steadily getting her up that cliff, seeing that he was heavily sunburned, and seeing how he’d missed hairs on his face, high on his cheekbones and low on his neck when he’d shaved by feel only, as he had that morning, standing naked in the river. She would do that for him next time, and if they were naked together to do that…?

Where had that thought come from?

She was making up her mind about a lot of things; even beginning to appreciate what he had done getting down to her as they paused and rested, with him keeping hold of the rope at her waist and she could look around, gradually losing her fear, but that was because he was with her.

She was trembling when they got to the top of that first cliff, feeling him lift her that final step onto a secure rock surface, never letting go of her and with his hand holding the rope around her middle. They were to one side of the loose sand of the next scree up this slope, and once he’d freed his rope and coiled it as before, recovering his backpack, they climbed again, walking from boulder to boulder, along ridges, up to the next rock-face they would climb, but this time she was able to see nothing but a long drop below them onto the rocks below. He was no more than two or three feet from her this time.

They rested for a few minutes, her heart beating noticeably, as he flexed his arms to loosen them, and prepared his rope for the next stages, leaving her tied onto his rope, this time, and taking greater care of her as he stayed closer to her, holding her arm as well as the rope around her middle as they walked up to the next rock-face, aware of her growing nervousness, caught between the impossible above them, and death, below them.

He was making it easy for her, but he was paying a price for that, with his knees, bloody, when her feet had slipped once or twice and bumped him off his footing to land with her up against the rock face. His hands must be getting raw too, but he knew the difficulty, and became even more careful.

She became more confident in him, as well as grateful, recognizing what this effort was costing him, so she made an effort to help him more.

The higher they climbed, the more was opened up above them to show how much more they still had to climb.

The same question echoed time and again around in her mind: and he’d come down this?

Her gratitude to him was suddenly augmented, wondering how he’d managed to get down to her as quickly as he must have done without killing himself.

He took the next stages just as carefully as the first, and in the same way, getting his pack to the top first, tying off his rope, and then coming down for her, babying her each step of the way, encouraging, and at the same time making sure that nothing could go wrong for them as he kept reminding her not to look down, then resting between each stage,

Bench after bench; slope after slope; scree after scree. They climbed out of one ‘well’, only to find themselves still near the bottom of another, with ridge-after-ridge to follow and ascend to the next climb, which then revealed yet another scree or another boulder-strewn climb to get to the next cliff.

He repeated each of the next two difficult stages to the top as he had done the first time, staying with her and helping her climb for herself as he supported her and took in the rope again.

As they climbed, and she felt more and more secure of his capabilities and as they got closer to the top, she was able to study her surroundings; seeing the river receding slowly below them from a broad, noisy ribbon, to a narrow strip, soon passing out of their sight, hidden in the valley below, but mostly she noticed him, watching him, seeing how focused he was upon helping her, and what he was doing to help her, and how carefully he took each foot gained.

She might have been stuck down there for the rest of her short life. A rescue down there would have been almost impossible. He could never have left her, and they could not have stayed.

What she’d seen from the river was only a quarter of what he’d done to get down to her. How had he survived? Her heart went out to him.

It had been a miracle that he’d got down to her in time to rescue her, and in one piece! A miracle that he’d got down to her at all.

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